prolonging his life and delaying his old age." Gandalf in "Shadow of the Past"(Fotr EE Movie)

So if you do the math (111 take away 60) Bilbo is fifty to fiftyone years of age at the finding of the One Ring in Gollum's Cave. This might be a strong indicator for the the casting of Bilbo in the up coming Hobbit films. I know that there has been a protracted discussion of Hobbit years versus Human years and I do not know if there can be a definitive settlement of this issue based on textual references. I do know that Ian Holm was aged back to appear roughly in the Gollum's Cave scene in FotR.I assert, based an multiple readings and thirty years of study, that Tolkien intended Bilbo to be and act like an independently wealthy country squire of fifty years of age at the start of The Hobbit. He is soft. He has been living a very quiet life in an idyllic country and is complacent to no end. He goes of the adventure gets hardened by the trek and discovers, through the well known series of events, that there is much more to him than he thought. He gains an insight into social matters and historical matters that transforms him into one of the Wise as shown later in Lord of the Ring.

I do believe that the casting of Bilbo is the one most critical thing that can make or break the films. To fulfill all of the criteria necessary for a brilliant portrayal of the role should require someone masterfully skilled in the art of movie acting. There are very few young men who qualify at this level as well as the other maters of importance. (These being height, physical type, relationship to earlier casting of Ian Holm in the role Etc.)

that majority of people who will see The Hobbit don`t spend time nitpicking every single bit of the book, casting,etc. They`ll accept whoever is served as Bilbo. The movies are not made for nitpickers only nor is deviation from what nitpickers (means us) want a disrespect to the source. Movie doesn`t have to capture every little detail but the spirit and idea behind the story and character. And, IMO, the point of Bilbo`s adventure and the spirit of Bilbo aren`t in that he was a middle-aged man but that he did something that was a big no-no for any Hobbit. It`s a cultural thing more than age thing. His age never plays a part in anything anyway. he complains how much he misses his old life; he doesn`t complain about not being abe to do this or that because he`s old or whatever. Age doesn`t define who he is.

..is that anyone is welcome to make their own points in any thread, and to make them however they like (as long as it's within the rules of engagement here, and unlike someone starting a new thread to make a point despite the fact that there's an almost identical discussion that is still on page one of this board. )

I personally think it's impossible *not* to 'view the film as evidence' at this stage of the game and only adds to the discussion, rather than detracting from it.

In general (not directed at any one person in particular), anyone who starts a thread (anywhere on the internet, for that matter) needs to be prepared for it to go off in whatever direction it happens to go off in. Trying to micro-manage the direction of a thread in any one direction is like herding cats (trust me ) and discounting anyone's opinion or contribution in any thread is going down a road that's not in keeping with the spirit of this site. Koru: Maori symbol representing a fern frond as it opens. The koru reaches towards the light, striving for perfection, encouraging new, positive beginnings.

"Life can't be all work and no TORn" -- jflower

"I take a moment to fervently hope that the camaradarie and just plain old fun I found at TORn will never end" -- LOTR_nutcase

Thank you. I have felt belittled and discounted by some of the replies to my comments, and I just want to say I'm glad you mentioned that,"discounting anyone's opinion or contribution in any thread is going down a road that's not in keeping with the spirit of this site. " I'm here for conversation and discussion, not to be belittled, discounted, etc.

Some appear younger than their age, others look older. Some die of old age at 45 some live to 110.

This is not the point. What you are doing by viewing the film as evidence is what I was pointing out.

Although very few hobbits lived to 111 or more (like Bilbo), I think Tolkien indicates in FOTR that majority of hobbits live to 90-100 or so. I'll spend some time looking through FOTR, but does someone else have the details on this? If this is so, which I think it is at least close, and you combine this with 33 being the coming of age, then Hobbits actually do on average mature later and live longer than humans. The average American (or brit or other white person that Tolkien had in mind when he wrote this stuff) was living into 70-75, more or less. So for me, this means roughly:

Human Hobbit 18-21 30-35 30-40 50-55 70-75 85-95

These are just estimates of course, but I think they are close to what Tolkien was approximating. This would but Bilbo in TH as young but fully into adulthood, at the beginning of TH. Of course, I think it's also important to remember that Hobbits in general were characterized as being 'less mature and more innocent' for their relative age than humans would be. So a hobbit of 50 would probably act perhaps like a human in their 20's. I guess this last bit doesn't matter regarding the age of the actor, but since in a movie much is made of appearance as metaphor for the character and what is happening around them, perhaps the actor should be cast even younger than the relative age.

Ahem — there are no magical geese a‐laying any golden rings here, just One Ring that had (entirely on its own) long lain quiet. ☺

Although the miswording wouldn’t have changed anything of cosmic import, surely they would never have let Gandalf say the (here‐)ungrammaticalhas laid, and Sir Ian would never have uttered it unless he were acting the part of a far less learnèd character than the ancient loremaster from time before Time.

A minor typo, but still: it ruins the mood. The actual lines are:

GANDALF: This is the One Ring. Forged by the Dark Lord Sauron in the ﬁres of Mount Doom. Taken by Isildur from the hand of Sauron himself.

FRODO: Bilbo found it. In Gollum’s cave.

GANDALF: Yes. For sixty years, the Ring lay quiet, in Bilbo’s keeping, prolonging his life, delaying old age. But no longer, Frodo. Evil is stirring in Mordor. The Ring has awoken. It’s heard its master’s call.

I’ve just listened quite carefully to the scene in the ﬁlm, and it precisely follows the words given above. I took them, punctuation included, from the closed-captioning text, and I’ve triple‐checked them for accuracy. Had they been as the OP’s putative subject line had them, their cognitive dissonance would certainly have startled me, and I recalled no such thing occurring. Although this is the most minor of immaterial matters, putting such fundamentally flawed words into the mouth of Gandalf himself too strains the illusion of consistency crucial to the subcreation’s magic.

Note that I took this from the disc of the original cinematic release, not from the extended edition, which I also saw in cinema, on 2003–12–17, that best and longest of days. This proves that the Ring’s age‐retardant effect on Bilbo, so clear in the novel, was always present, even in the ﬁlm’s initial, shorter release. It was not unique to the longer release, as some here have seemed to suggest.

One more aside. Please pardon me while I gush.

I am again stunned by the craft that with each subtle eye movement, with each exquisitely intoned word, and with each pregnant pause in carefully measured lines, Sir Ian brought to the character of Gandalf the Grey. Magniﬁcent! He deserves more than the nominations he received for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role as the The Fellowship’s Grey Pilgrim. He deserves to have won!

Seeing him again in the rôle that he so made his own, the rôle he preferred over the White Wizard he would come to play in the two later ﬁlms, rekindles my excitement and anticipation about these upcoming Hobbit ﬁlms. Watch again just these few short minutes from this particular scene, and see whether Sir Ian’s marvelous art doesn’t work the same dweomer on you. A true pleasure!

…all eyes looked upon the ring; for he held it now aloft, and the green jewels gleamed there that the Noldor had devised in Valinor. For this ring was like to twin serpents, whose eyes were emeralds, and their heads met beneath a crown of golden flowers, that the one upheld and the other devoured; that was the badge of Finarﬁn and his house.

If I respond with a point that seems to do that very thing it is not intended. I believe that explicating complicated situations requires constant reevaluation of ones opinions. ( I am speaking for myself and my opinions here.) I love to learn and if I am presented with opinions that do not seem to fit with my experience I might question them or present an alternative. This is not intended to be personal. I have learned a lot and relearned even more since I became active on these boards. I hope to continue to do so. Kangi Ska

Although very few hobbits lived to 111 or more (like Bilbo), I think Tolkien indicates in FOTR that majority of hobbits live to 90-100 or so. I'll spend some time looking through FOTR, but does someone else have the details on this?

Why, certainly. Taking the lives of ﬁfty‐three hobbits into account, their median age at death was 99, the mode was 102, and the mean was 98.42 with a standard deviation of 8.87.

Which seems to settle the matter quite soundly. Sure, two or three might be a coincidence, although four or ﬁve is looking downright ﬁshy. But the aggregate weight of ﬁfty‐three data points that collectively tell a single story is certainly the result of a carefully planned design.

That’s pretty conclusive evidence that you can take 100 as the hobbit equivalent of a man’s proverbial three‐score and ten allotted years — a particular measure Tolkien was known to also use when deriving ages for Númenóreans. Now apply that 70% ﬁgure to the age of majority and to the childbearing years we know hobbits to have followed, and you ﬁnd that they all line up fairly closely, plus or minus a year or three.

Bingo!

During this research, I was reminded of how:

Bilbo is Frodo’s ﬁrst and second cousin, both once removed; Merry’s and Pippin’s ﬁrst and second cousin, both twice removed; and Fatty Bolger’s ﬁrst cousin, twice removed.

Frodo is Bilbo’s ﬁrst and second cousin, both once removed; Merry’s ﬁrst, second, and third cousin, all once removed; Pippin’s second and third cousin, both once removed; and Fatty Bolger’s second cousin, once removed.

Pippin is Bilbo’s ﬁrst and second cousin, both twice removed; Frodo’s second and third cousin, once removed; Merry’s ﬁrst cousin, his third cousin, and also his ﬁrst cousin, once removed; and Fatty Bolger’s third cousin.

Merry is Bilbo’s ﬁrst and second cousin, both twice removed; Frodo’s ﬁrst, second, and third cousin, all once removed; Pippin’s ﬁrst cousin, his third cousin, and also his ﬁrst cousin, once removed; and Fatty Bolger’s third cousin.

Just in case you’d forgotten. :)

…all eyes looked upon the ring; for he held it now aloft, and the green jewels gleamed there that the Noldor had devised in Valinor. For this ring was like to twin serpents, whose eyes were emeralds, and their heads met beneath a crown of golden flowers, that the one upheld and the other devoured; that was the badge of Finarﬁn and his house.

If Tolkien didn't intentionally skew the examples he presented in detail. To make it statistically valid you need a random sample across the population. Since this is not possible, the statistics only apply to the sample and cannot be generalized to a general population (real or imaginary). You may infer that Tolkien intended this to be generalizable but in the absence of any documented statement by the author it remains as speculation. I admit that it is a good inference of his intent but it can't be given the weight of fact. I am interested and will be searching for any forthright statement of this as a fact. If you can supply the reference to such a statement. I will will be greatful as it might save me days of fruitless effort. Kangi Ska

I think we should be careful about what we call "facts" for an imaginary world. The same statistical rules do not apply equally to "real or imaginary" general populations. All talk of a need for "random samples across the population" and Tolkien "intentionally skewing the examples" assumes that hobbits exist or existed. They don't, of course. The Shire and its inhabitants can never be measured beyond the data that Tolkien writes in his books or letters. Furthermore, as we know, even those data will be contradictory or inconsistent depending on when the author conceived them, and whether he was aware of (or concerned with matching) his earlier conceptions when he did.

Since we are presently concerned with the question of hobbit lifespans, we are blessed with Tolkien's geneological tables, which give us far more data on ages for an imaginary race than probably any other author ever bothered to produce. Finrod has done a noble work of analyzing it, and showing that the tables confirm that, indeed, the hobbits' typical life span is about 100 years.

To speculate that this is incomplete and limited data - possibly "skewed" by the author - and so statistically invalid, is to miss the point. These data don't beg for a generalization by Tolkien to make them valid in our eyes. They confirm the generalization that Tolkien gave at first, and with which most authors would have been content:

Sixty years had passed since [Bilbo] set out on his memorable journey, and he was old even for Hobbits, who reached a hundred as often as not; (Prologue, The Fellowship of the Ring)

Least of all squire, who has more consistently called for an accurate adaptation of the story of The Hobbit (rather than LOTR-lite) than anyone here. The arguments being presented here would call for an actor appearing in the 35-40 year old range, not a 20 year old. I think a perfectly reasonable argument could be made for casting a 50 year old to match what likely was Tolkien's intentions when he wrote The Hobbit itself, but I doubt they will do that. I will be satisfied if the actor is a mature-looking late 30s to early 40s. 'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

although I personally find it frustrating when people go off on a tangent that is not the one I hoped to pursue when I started a thread, so understand that completely. But I find it even more frustrating when the person who starts a thread replies to every single reply and turns it all into a dialogue with them (like with a teacher, in school) instead of allowing the group to develop the question in their own way. I think the latter is more appropriate to this kind of board. I actually left the Reading Room because there was too much of the former style there after a while (not at first!). The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.